Checklist for moving website to a new host

The following is a checklist for moving (migrating) your wordpress site to a new web host (i.e. to new ip address or server).Quite often, we may find it necessary to move to a new host.But before doing so, make sure that your new web host has good reviews from its current users. If you are satisfied with the credentials of your new web host, you may proceed moving your wordpress site (blog) to the new host. 
 

But do not shut down your old hosting account in a hurry.It is a good practice to hold on to it, until you wordpress blog/site stabilizes in its new hosting environment (new ip address or server). This could be for a period ranging from 60 days to 180 days, depending upon the size of your wordpress blog/website.

Checklist for moving your wordpress site to a new host (ip address):

• Backup your wordpress database and the content in your wordpress wp-content folder
• Set up the wordpress environment in your new hosting server(web host). Make sure that all your database configuration settings in wp_config.php are appropriate and point to the new database
• Copy all your content to the the new hosting environment.The Content to be copied includes both your database content and your content within wp-content folder of your wordpress blog.The database content can be copied by restoring your backed up database content.Content in your wp-content folder may be copied to your new host, by using a FTP tool like Filezilla.
• Ensure that your content is live on the new host’s server.
• Change your DNS settings so your hostname points to the new IP address.This can be done through your account settings, with the vendor from whom you purchased the domain name.
• Check your logs to see whether search engine spiders like googlebot and Yahoo! Slurp starts crawling your site on the new IP address or server.
• Check your Google webmaster Tools account for crawl errors, if any.

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